Gank (a slang shortening of "gang kill") is a coordinated surprise attack on an enemy player who does not expect a fight at that moment and is in a disadvantageous position. The goal of a gank is to quickly kill the target through numerical or tactical superiority while they are alone or distracted.
The term came from MMO games, where a group of players would attack a single character, leaving them little chance to respond. In Dota 2 the word took root especially firmly and became part of everyday gaming jargon: "going to gank mid," "we got ganked on the lane," "we need a gank on the carry."
How it works
Usually a gank is carried out by heroes with high mobility or crowd control — abilities that immobilize or slow down the opponent. Such a hero (or a pair of heroes) leaves their lane and moves to another lane in order to catch an enemy player off guard.
A successful gank gives the team several advantages at once:
- the kill brings gold and experience that the opponent does not get;
- the hero on the killed lane is temporarily out of the game until they respawn;
- psychological pressure makes the opponent play more cautiously and lose farm — the accumulation of gold and experience from killing creeps.
Gank versus other tactics
A gank differs from a regular lane trade in that the initiator is more often a player from another part of the map, rather than someone who is permanently on the lane. This also distinguishes it from lurking — a tactic where a player hides in ambush on their own territory and waits for a convenient moment to strike suddenly in their own zone, rather than coming from another lane.
A common reason for a gank is the absence of an enemy support or carry on the map, visible through the vision system or by game logic: if the opponent doesn't show up on the radar, there's a good chance they're going to gank someone else. Teams that know how to read such signals and react in time gain a noticeable advantage in the pace of the game.
The word is also used in a broader sense — to denote any sudden group attack, not only in Dota 2, but also in other games with PvP elements that have a map, lanes of movement, and the ability to sneak up on an opponent.